Content area
Full Text
1. Introduction
The role of businesses in the society has evolved over the years with continued philosophical transformation in the very nature and purpose of business. The transformation holds its origin with the shift in the perception about the role, authority and status of business organization from profit maximizing private entity to quality of life enriching social institution. From being concerned with only making profit for its stockholders, businesses have moved to a stakeholder and community-based approach. Businesses have entered the age of globalization where responsibilities have broadened resulting in a multidimensional reputation. Nurturance and defending reputation are increasingly becoming a challenging task for every corporate player not only in the market place but also in the greater society. The loss of confidence about a company among its clients, investors and other stakeholders may lead to devastating impact on the company's sustainability. Therefore, reputation is constantly proving itself as an important intangible asset that requires careful attention and management.
The four most referred theories of CR are signalling theory, resource view theory, stakeholder theory and strategy theory. Signalling theory explains how the strategic choices and actions of firms provide signals, which are then used by different stakeholders to build impressions of the firms (Basdeo et al., 2006). A firm's current reputation is dependent upon the signals it sends to the public about its behaviour, be it directly from the firm or via other intermediaries in the information channels. Signals concerning financial performance, product quality, social responsibility, ownership composition, size, media visibility and type of industry will influence perception of the firm. Resource-based view considers reputation as a valuable and rare resource that gives rise to sustained competitive advantage. It is believed that CR as an intangible attribute of companies is more durable and resistant to competitive pressure than other product or service attributes (Illia and Balmer, 2012) and hence serves as a better competitive advantage (Sabaté and Puente, 2003). Reputation is that asset of the company that is hard to duplicate or imitate by the competitors (Surroca et al., 2010). Stakeholder theory puts forward the notion that the very essence of any business lies in building relationship and creating values for the stakeholders (Freeman and Dmytriyev, 2017). Drawing reputation from stakeholder theory indicates...